Porn Won't Heal Your Emotional Wounds

It would be a painful scene to watch in a movie:


Sometime during our knight's courageous daily battle, a poisoned dart finds its way between the gaps in his armor. The paralyzing serum gets into his bloodstream--but fortunately doesn't kill him. By the time he arrives back at the castle, he's a shell of his usual self.

Here's the bind about being a heroic warrior: He can't walk in and say, "Help! I'm wounded!" Instead, he stumbles around and does his best to get the horse settled in the stable and bathe the little prince and princess. He listens politely as the countess talks about her day. But he doesn't really hear her. He's squinting and clenching his teeth over his own wound. He doesn't show her his growing blister or tell her his left side has gone numb.

It's just as painful to witness the emotional equivalent of the above scene among men in the throes of addiction. And it's beautiful to watch them develop true, deep, relationship courage, the kind that allows them to come home at the end of a hard day and cry out, "Help! I'm wounded!"

As Lyle was trimming a huge oak tree, one of the falling branches tore down a rain gutter and damaged the eave of a nearby house. For the rest of the day, one of the more experienced guys on the crew teased him relentlessly about his mistake. Then when they got back to the office, he razzed Lyle in front of their boss and the biggest gossip in the city offices. Lyle felt humiliated and angry. 

Three months ago, he would have tried to just keep going as the poison serum coursed through his bloodstream. He wouldn't have talked to anyone about what he was feeling.

That night, he would have stayed up late listening to heavy metal music, eventually turned on the TV, and eventually found something salacious on cable to distract him from how crappy he felt inside. Then, the next day, he would have felt even worse about himself.

This time, instead, he took one of his more understanding coworkers aside later that afternoon. He mostly let out a string of profanities, but at least he was talking. "I haven't used that kind of language in years." Something about the whole #@!&$ department he works for. When he talked about the tree branch and the damage, his friend responded, "Everyone does that kind of stuff now and then."

When he got home, he didn't exactly cry out, "Help! I'm wounded!" He just let his wife, Katie, know it had been a hard day. He let all of his frustration and shame and feelings of inadequacy spill out. "...and then, to top it off, a woman in payroll got on my case about how I had reported my hours. She must have seen that I was totally shut down because she started backpedaling. She said, 'I'm not trying to be mean to you, I'm just telling you so that you avoid it in the future.' Inside it felt like, I have one more enemy I have to watch out for in this place..."

Talking with Katie didn't suddenly help Lyle feel all better. But these days he's staying sober despite the kind of emotional poisoned darts that used to send him back to his old ways. He's reaching out instead of acting out. He's dosing up on oxytocin instead of dopamine, and that's helping to clear the stress hormones out of his system. He's bonding with his wife instead of becoming more hooked on smut. It's a better life for our hero.